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TVTranscript
00:04He's one of the most influential game designers of our time.
00:08He practically invented the god game genre.
00:12But almost missed his destiny.
00:16I got into the industry almost on a dare, almost on a bet.
00:21One of the greatest games almost didn't hit the shelves.
00:25I actually stopped working on it, put it aside for about six months,
00:28and worked on a different game.
00:30He's a mastermind.
00:32Civilization is just a monumental, a hall of fame game, if there was a hall of fame.
00:36Who questioned himself.
00:38I really faced a dilemma after Civilization was out there.
00:42Was I going to try and top Civilization, and then try and top that game,
00:45and try and top the game after that?
00:46He overcame his doubts.
00:48Sid Meier is just an outstanding personality.
00:50He's a philosopher, he's an educator, I learned quite a bit from him.
00:53He is the most humble person I know.
00:55And he's extremely brilliant.
00:56I concur, Your Excellency.
00:59And conquered an industry.
01:00You know if the Sid Meier name is on it, then it's going to be a good game.
01:04This is the story of the man behind the God Games, Sid Meier.
01:30As a child, Sid Meier is both imaginative and motivated.
01:34I was always interested in games and kind of letting my imagination run free and playing,
01:40learning about whatever, playing with toy soldiers or blocks or whatever.
01:43So I think my child had set me up in a lot of ways to be a computer game designer.
01:49And he finds inspiration in his grandparent's backyard.
01:52I spent a summer living with my grandparent.
01:55And there's a train that ran right by their house, a clockwork, five or six times a day.
01:59And I could walk to the train station and see the train come in and check the schedules.
02:03And it fascinated me the way that the trains employees ran on time.
02:08Getting closer to the industry he will eventually dominate, he goes on to study computers.
02:13In those days, computers took up an entire room and they couldn't play games on them.
02:17They were only for serious things.
02:19But I studied programming and system design.
02:21So I got a pretty normal job installing computer systems into parking stores.
02:26Then all of a sudden, my personal computer came around and I said to him,
02:29hey, this is what I want to be doing, writing computer games.
02:31So I got a personal computer and in my spare time, I started making games.
02:34He not only makes one, he sells one.
02:38The very first game that I sold, I programmed the game.
02:42I printed out the manual on my home printer.
02:44I put it in a bag, in a plastic bag that I bought at the Giant.
02:47And took it down to the computer store and said, hey, do you want to buy this computer game?
02:50Their answer is yes.
02:52And Sid falls in love.
02:55In the early days, it was very much a labor of love.
02:57I enjoyed games and I liked computers.
03:00And kind of just putting those two together and watching what appeared on the screen.
03:03And it was really a feeling of creativity.
03:05In my day job, I couldn't be very creative at night.
03:07I could create these fantastic games at home.
03:09So it was really a labor of love at first.
03:12And then gradually over time, it turned into an industry.
03:15And a simple win leads Sid into the hands of the gaming industry.
03:20I got into the industry almost on a dare, almost on a bet.
03:24A friend of mine and I were playing a computer game and I beat him.
03:27And he said, how could you do that?
03:29You know, I'm a great computer game player.
03:31And I said, well, you know, I'm a programmer, so I can kind of understand the design of the game.
03:34And he said, well, you know, if you're so good, you'll write a game.
03:37I said, well, okay, I could do that.
03:38And he said, well, then I'll sell it.
03:41That friend, Bill Steely, is a former Air Force major with great technical expertise.
03:46Combine that with Sid's creativity and you have a new endeavor.
03:50We actually got together and started a company called Microprose way back in the early days of computer games.
03:57Their first game is Hellcat Ace, a flight simulator.
04:00It's released in 1984.
04:02The early days of Microprose were very much a time of discovery and exploration.
04:07We tried to make games that appealed a little more of an adult audience, a little more serious games.
04:13F-15 Strike Eagle was the first realistic modern combat airplane game.
04:20We basically created games that we liked to play.
04:22If a game hadn't been written yet and we wanted to play it, we had to go out and write
04:25it.
04:25And that's what we did.
04:26And my having ground, actually, one, ready to check.
04:28Thanks to the one, two.
04:30Microprose quickly establishes a name for themselves as a provider of flight and air traffic control simulations.
04:38By 1987, he takes a chance on a whole new concept.
04:42My partner, Bill, wanted me to do another flight simulator.
04:45Because we had just done F-15 and been successful and said, you know, do another flight simulator.
04:48I said, you know, I don't want to do the same game all the time.
04:50I think I'll do a game about pirates.
04:54And he said, no, no, nobody will buy that.
04:55I said, well, I want to do a game about pirates.
05:00And he said, well, maybe if we put your name on it, then the people who like F-15 will
05:04buy pirates.
05:05Sid Meier's Pirates is an adventure role-playing game in real time.
05:10It's released on the Commodore 64.
05:14One thing that he did do that I think is pretty seminal was combine different genres of games into a
05:21single title.
05:23With pirates, for example, he took role-playing, action, and adventure, commerce, and all these different elements that used to
05:30be separated into their own different game genres and brought them all together in one experience.
05:35Pirates, people are still playing it. It's an open-ended role-playing game where you get to be a pirate
05:39and sail with a Spanish name and capture ship.
05:41It's almost like starring in a movie.
05:46One of my friends introduced me to a game called Pirates in the Commodore 64.
05:49I thought it was an incredible game.
05:51It wasn't so much that I wanted to make that game myself.
05:54It was the fact that I wanted to work for a company that made products like that.
05:57I said, this is what the future of gaming is going to be.
06:01Microprose goes on to create more military strategy type games.
06:05And in 1988, they released the video game version of Tom Clancy's novel, Red Storm Rising.
06:11But the success of these games is nothing compared to what Sid is about to do.
06:27By 1987, Sid Meier creates his own company, Microprose, that reaches sales of more than $20 million.
06:34Most of his games are military-based, and most of his ideas are great.
06:39I really didn't know what to expect when I started writing computer games.
06:42I did it because I enjoyed it.
06:44But I remember a point when we had one or two games that were successful.
06:47I suddenly realized, I could do this for a while.
06:49You know, this could be like a real job.
06:51He begins to capitalize on his name.
06:53And in 1990, releases Sid Meier's Covert Action.
06:57Absolutely, it's an effective marketing tool.
07:00Not only is it telling you that it's a Sid Meier game, but it's also telling you that it's a
07:04game of quality.
07:05You realize what you're going to get from a Sid Meier game.
07:09And so it's absolutely a right decision.
07:11I don't think it speaks to egotism at all.
07:17Sid goes back to his roots for inspiration on his next game, which combines competition, colorful characters, and financiers of
07:25the railroad business.
07:26The result is Railroad Tycoon.
07:29Railroad Tycoon was kind of the first game that we did that was basically about creating something as opposed to
07:34destroying something.
07:35The game puts you in the railroad business, laying track, managing corporate finances, and even setting schedules.
07:43You've got game mechanics that people want to buy into and make it fun to actually put the pieces down.
07:50You'll have a success.
07:52While testing Railroad Tycoon, he meets fellow designer and fan, Bruce Shelley.
07:57He was just a joy to work with. He was almost like my twin brother in a lot of ways.
08:01He gave me a lot of support, a lot of ideas.
08:03First of all, it was incredible fun.
08:07It seems like part of the mission statement for game development should be, let's have fun doing this.
08:11And we did have fun together.
08:13Beyond that, I mean, working with him was like going, I've described that as going to game design university.
08:19He prototypes by himself. He does his own arc, does his own programming.
08:22If you read the credits of the game, they say, buy Sid Meier with Bruce Shelley.
08:26I just thought that that was my role.
08:28He was a star.
08:30In September 1991, MicroPros goes public and raises an estimated $18 million.
08:37Sid, always being the creative person, grows disenchanted with the business side of things.
08:42I realized that I couldn't be responsibly looking after the business side of MicroPros doing what I needed to do
08:49there and be a game designer.
08:52So I made the choice that I'd really rather be a game designer, sold my share in MicroPros and just
08:56became an employee there, essentially.
08:57After that, I did Civilization, so it must have been the right decision.
09:01The development of Civilization is influenced by another gaming guru, Will Wright.
09:06Civilization went through a pretty strange path to get to where it ended up.
09:10It first started off as a real-time game, much like SimCity.
09:15Frustrated with the results, Sid Meier walks away from his pet project.
09:20And I actually stopped working on it, put it aside for about six months and worked on a different game.
09:25After his self-imposed hiatus, Sid goes back to the drawing board, decides to take the game in a different
09:31direction and adds historical elements.
09:34By 1991, Sid Meier's Civilization is ready for shipment.
09:38For the first half, we really weren't sure about Civilization, but there came a point where it just clicked, and
09:45we couldn't stop playing.
09:47And then we realized that this game is something special.
09:50Although inspired by SimCity, Civilization is very different.
09:54It's a strategy game, and the player is given 6,000 years to turn a wandering tribe into a technologically
10:00developed society.
10:02I think Civilization is kind of the culmination of a lot of the threads of games that I've been working
10:07on until that time.
10:08It's really the game that included the idea of building as opposed to destroying.
10:14And it included lots of elements of history, which is always something that I was interested in.
10:18You get to be an emperor, a king, and even a president.
10:22And the power you hold means getting to decide the fate of a nation.
10:28Civilization, in a nutshell, is really the history of the world brought to life on your computer.
10:32You get to direct it and control it.
10:34You know, you can play a game of Civilization and go tell somebody about it.
10:38You know, say, oh, you know, I was having this really horrible time with the Egyptians.
10:41They're on my continent, and they're just trying to take over.
10:43You know, you begin to get caught up in the cinematic feel of everything.
10:46I think that really, really sets them apart.
10:49Civilization is different from previous strategy games, because it's not based on war.
10:54Civilization incorporates military conflict as part of the strategic situation that you're dealing with,
11:00but it covers economics, politics.
11:02So all those elements really get stirred in together to make Civilization an interesting game to play.
11:10I think he's truly curious about everything, and he looks in different places for things.
11:17Following its release, Civilization hits a nerve with audiences and becomes an instant success.
11:24It was just, the topic was so familiar to people, the way it flowed along from one event to the
11:28other.
11:28It was kind of engrossing and drew people in.
11:30And somehow it just struck a chord for its time and became a really popular game.
11:35I think a lot of it's being at the right place at the right time and finding the right market
11:39for your games.
11:40Fans simply can't get enough.
11:42We hear from a lot of people who play Civilization, and quite a few of them say,
11:46you know, my girlfriend hates you, my wife hates you because, you know, I won't stop playing this game,
11:51and I won't pay any attention to them.
11:53They appeal to, you know, again, intelligent people, strategy-minded people, adults mainly.
11:59I mean, these are classic games. They go way back.
12:02They're very deep, intricate gameplay.
12:05They can consume your life almost as much as EverQuest.
12:10Somehow we capture that addictive quality in Civilization, and it's, a lot of it is magic.
12:15We don't really know exactly how we did it, but we're just happy that we did it.
12:19But I have one story that kind of counteracts all of those comics.
12:23And a young boy shares his very personal experience.
12:27We got a letter from, it seemed like maybe a 10- or 12-year-old boy.
12:31It said, you know, I like Civilization. Your game saved my family.
12:36Because one night, late at night, my mother was in the basement playing Civilization.
12:40She couldn't go to sleep. She smelled smoke.
12:43There was a fire in the house. She woke everybody up, got them out of the house,
12:46and saved the whole family. So Civilization saved that family.
12:49So I think that counteracts all the unhappy wives and girlfriends out there.
12:54Sid Meier looks at things from a gamer's perspective.
12:57He plays a lot of games, which I think also sets him apart.
13:00He approaches games as a gamer because he spends a lot of time, you know, with his hands on them.
13:05He's not just interested in it from a conceptual standpoint or from a design standpoint.
13:10He's interested in it from the standpoint of the gamer.
13:13What's their experience going to be like?
13:15I think he spends a lot more time playing games than most other designers do.
13:19With the unprecedented success of Railroad Tycoon and now Civilization,
13:24Sid Meier helps give breath to these so-called God Games.
13:30I suppose that's probably the best description.
13:33You are omnipotent in that world.
13:37You build the railroad. You build it from the ground up.
13:40Or in Civilization, you build it from the ground up.
13:43He practically invented the God Game genre.
13:48The 4X genre with idols like Railroad Tycoon, Civilization.
13:52Games that really sort of let you get in and manage a whole system.
13:55They're not focused on one particular aspect of it, like military or commerce or whatever.
13:59But they combine them all into one experience.
14:01I think Civilization was the biggest surprise to us.
14:04We loved little Civilization as he was growing up.
14:07But when we sent him out into the world, he really surprised us.
14:10He was just a star in there.
14:12But can he come up with another star? Sid Meier begins to question himself.
14:17I really faced a dilemma after Civilization kind of thing.
14:20Was I going to try and top Civilization and then try and top that game and try and top the
14:24game after that?
14:36Sid Meier is the mastermind behind both Railroad Tycoon and Civilization.
14:41His name alone earned some respect and he's helped give life to a brand new genre, God Games.
14:46How can he keep up the pace?
14:49It was a real concern to me that if I kept trying to top myself each time, I'd eventually go
14:54crazy.
14:54I didn't want to go down that road.
14:56So he opts to change directions.
14:58And in 1993, Sid releases CPU Bot, a music composition game.
15:04What I did almost for my own mental sanity was kind of take a completely different path and do a
15:09product called CPU Bot.
15:10But can he really stay away? The answer is, of course not.
15:14Sid eventually comes full circle and in 1994, Colonization is released.
15:21Followed by the successful Civilization II in 1996.
15:27But in May 1996, things turn for Sid as he makes the decision to leave Microprose, taking designers Jeff Briggs
15:35and Brian Reynolds with him.
15:36They form a brand new company and call it Firaxis Games.
15:40Firaxis was formed kind of as a reaction to the growth of Microprose.
15:45We decided to start a small company, which was only concerned with developing computer software.
15:51But the emphasis was on creativity and making good games as opposed to trying to run a large business.
15:56Their first release is in 1997. It's called Gettysburg and is a groundbreaking real-time war game.
16:10Combat units only.
16:12Following closely behind are Alpha Centauri, Antietam, and Civilization III.
16:20We've all been well received critically. We just wanted good feedback from our fans.
16:25So we think we made the right decision.
16:27And most of all, we enjoy working every day, and that's really the most important thing to us.
16:30And in February 2002, they let their creativity loose with SimGolf.
16:41SimGolf was a project that kind of started as a game about designing a golf course and grew into a
16:48game about people and the way they interact and the comedy of what happens on a golf course.
16:53Oh, Chuck.
16:55Creating your own characters and holding tournaments is more than a game about golf. It's almost a game about life.
17:02Mashuno!
17:03The bottom line is, it's still a game.
17:07And to Sid Meier, being a gamer is what he loves most.
17:10I think one of the secrets to our success is that we play our games over and over again as
17:14we develop.
17:14So when you play games and practice, that game's been played to death by us.
17:18Woo!
17:19And with genes like Sid's, it's no surprise that a certain someone is following in his footsteps.
17:25My son is a crazy computer console gamer, and he really inspires me a lot these days.
17:31He really inspires me to include the younger demographics, to make games easy to play, to make them a little
17:37more exciting.
17:40The Civilization franchise has earned millions today, and Sid Meier has earned his place among the elite.
17:46When we picked Game Gods a few years ago, probably the first name on the list was Sid Meier.
17:52He is probably the ultimate certifiable Game God. I mean, his resume is amazing.
17:59And Civilization is just a monumental, a hall of fame game, if it was a hall of fame.
18:04And what can we expect from Sid in Firaxis now?
18:08Will Civilization come to an end? We certainly hope not.
18:12We haven't run out of ideas for Civilization, so I think it'll be around for quite a while.
18:17We're happy making computer games, making strategy games, making kind of new games that people haven't seen before.
18:24Sid Meier entered the gaming industry as a gamer, and that's exactly where he remains.
18:29He conquered the unbelievable, and created the unreal. He is a mind to look out for, and a human being
18:36to look up to.
18:37And a lot of the things that he's done right have been emulated over the past 10 or 15 years.
18:41He's always one of the surprises you, so we'll have to wait to see.
18:44Well, he is the most humble person I know. He's the most generous person I know. And the most ingenious
18:53person I know.
18:56He's got an amazing breadth of talent. From his very first game, the F-15 flight simulator, to Pirates, which
19:03is an RPG adventure, to Civilization, which is an empire builder.
19:09He's had his hand in a lot of different types of projects.
19:12Let us build marketplaces, so that the peasants can barter for needed goods.
19:18They will find new surprises. He's always going in new directions.
19:27He has never done the same game a second time.
19:33He's become an icon. I mean, he's become a brand unto himself. But it doesn't seem as if any of
19:39that has gone to his head.
19:40Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.
19:43I hope to see a lot of games from Super Iron in the future. Every single game that he does
19:47is a big deal.
19:50General, we've been skirmishing all morning. They can't hold out much longer. Where's that infantry?
19:55Look there. Coming up the Emmitsburg Road. That's the first division. The Black Hat Boys. Thank God.
20:03So he's not just a designer and an innovator. He was also an entrepreneur who started a couple of important
20:09companies.
20:09And he's a philosopher. He's an educator. I learned quite a bit from him.
20:16I think what has made Sigmeyer such an inspiration to game designers is that he figured out a way to
20:22take the economies of the real world, you know, civilization, and actually turn that into something that one can toy
20:29with.
20:29And for that, there's so many of us that will be forever grateful.
20:40It really doesn't feel like I've been designing games for 20 years. That's an incredible amount of time.
20:44But looking back, there is a little bit of a sense of pride that we were there at the beginning.
20:50We saw the history of the industry. We were part of it.
20:52And I'm really glad to have been there, you know, in the good old days, the formative days.
20:59Wow, I enjoy this. Life is good. You can do what I like.
21:12I think we have a kind of a unique game development style in that if we find something we like,
21:16we build on it and we buy people.
21:17Just the last thing you want to do with us, is that we in the world.
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